has ever been conceived for the general evil of life?

"On the other hand," he writes, "the knowledge that the goal of human
life can be attained only by the development of a high degree of
solidarity amongst men will restrain actual egotism. The mere fact that
the enjoyment of life according to the precepts of Solomon (Ecelesiastes
ix. 7-10)* is opposed to the goal of human life, will lessen luxury and
the evil that comes from luxury. Conviction that science alone is able
to redress the disharmonies of the human constitution will lead directly
to the improvement of education and to the solidarity of mankind.

* Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine
with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let
thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no
ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all
the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee
under the sun, all the days of thy vanity for that is thy
portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest
under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it
with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor
knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

"In progress towards the goal, nature will have to be consulted
continuously. Already, in the case of the ephemerids, nature has
produced a complete cycle of normal life ending in natural death. In
the problem of his own fate, man must not be content with the gifts of
nature; he must direct them by his own efforts. Just as he has been able
to modify the nature of animals and plants, man must attempt to modify
his own constitution, so as to readjust its disharmonies. . . .

"To modify the human constitution, it will be necessary first, to frame
the ideal, and thereafter to set to work with all the resources of
science.

"If there can be formed an ideal able to unite men in a kind of religion
of the future, this ideal must be founded on scientific principles. And
if it be true, as has been asserted so often, that man can live by faith
alone, the faith must be in the power of science."

Now this, after all the flat repudiations that have preceded it of
"religion" and "philosophy" as remedies for human ills, is nothing less
than the fundamental proposition of the religious life translated into
terms of materialistic science, the proposition that damnation is really
over-individuation and that